


The Thrill of the Chase

by MeldeBaggins



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Baskerville - Freeform, Christmas, Cuddling & Snuggling, Epic John, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Original British Drama 2013 Trailer, Star Trek: TOS, Stuffed Toys, because Friendship is magic, but cute ones, hospitalizations, the Fluff has been doubled!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeldeBaggins/pseuds/MeldeBaggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of 221b ficlets about anything and everything. A study in expressing as much as possible in as few words as possible. </p><p>Chapter 1: inspired by the beautiful, teasing nine seconds we got in the Original British Drama 2013 trailer and just as oblique.<br/>Chapters 2-3: Sherlock discovers Star Trek.<br/>Chapter 4: Sherlock reflects on his words at the inn in Baskerville.<br/>Chapters 5-6: Sherlock has nightmares after Reichenbach.<br/>Chapter 7: Criminals learn not to mess with the mild-mannered doctor in the woolly jumpers.<br/>Chapter 8: Sherlock makes a new friend in hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Thrill of the Chase

“The thrill of the chase, the blood pumping through your veins—" Sherlock said, his words nearly a plea, “—just the two of us against the rest of the world!”

He felt his heart accelerate while memories of times past resurfaced in his mind, memories he hadn’t let himself touch for nearly two years. Emotions he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for just as long. Glorious chases through London alleyways, jumping and trapping and tripping and giggling. John’s peculiar laugh, all his own, a gift to Sherlock for something Good he'd done. A warm feeling in his chest to accompany it. Tea and biscuits, adrenaline, movie nights, crap telly, gunshots, coats, shock blankets, broken heating.

Didn’t John remember? Had it been so long? Was his John hiding underneath the mustache? It could be. He wished to brush it off, brush it away from where it had affixed itself to John’s lip. Surely it bothered him. It wasn’t supposed to be there. But Sherlock refrained because that might be one of those Bit Not Good things.

_I just want you back, John._

He remembered the blood on his lip, and he remembered that it couldn’t be that easy. Shouldn’t be that easy. But for John’s sake, and the sake of his own soul, he had to try.

_Please let me have you back._


	2. Star Trek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John exposes Sherlock to pop culture.

Sometimes, John and Sherlock have movie nights. It’s become a sort of tradition for them, to make tea, find some biscuits, and lounge on the couch as they relax after a case over James Bond or Doctor Who. 

Sherlock’s favorite, though, is Star Trek. 

John had some of the old VHS tapes, but when he noticed how much more Sherlock seemed to pay attention to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy solving no-win situations than he ever had to espionage, he bought the first season of the original show on DVD. Sherlock did not mention its sudden appearance on his bookshelf, sandwiched in between Criminal Law and the Diary of Jack the Ripper, but he did take out his violin and play four of John’s favorite pieces in a row that night.

Sherlock never chooses the show, but John knows that if he puts in Star Trek, he’ll probably get a quieter evening, snuggled up on the couch with one pseudo-Vulcan who will never afterwards admit to the contact.

Sometimes, a quote will slip into their everyday conversation, and they’ll share a secret smile. Sherlock will tease John about what a doctor isn’t, and John will call him Spock.

And, once, when Sherlock lamented again how he could’ve been an excellent criminal, John told him that first he’d have to grow a beard.


	3. Star Trek II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sequel of sorts to "Star Trek." John continues the tradition.

For Christmas, John got him the second season. Sherlock had found the neatly-wrapped package leaning up against his door the next morning, when he finally came out of his room. Despite the emotions he would never admit were wreaking havoc with his mind, Sherlock had deigned to sit at breakfast with John, not eating his own food but watching as John did. And afterwards, he put a disc in their telly and let the episodes run while he stared out the window. John couldn’t be sure, but he thought he caught Sherlock giving a wistful, perhaps disappointed glance to the television when T’Pring revealed her logical motivations for using Spock and his heart against him and his best friend.

It was at that moment when Sherlock picked up his violin, turning away from both John and screen, and began to improvise. John never really would understand the unique relationship Sherlock had to the Woman, but he knew his friend well enough to know that, romantic or intellectual or whatever else, Sherlock had been deeply affected by her death.

And so, when the melancholy composition paused, John skipped forward until “The Trouble with Tribbles” started playing. He didn’t expect Sherlock to join him on the couch, but he stayed anyway.

A moment later, Sherlock ghosted over, speaking the day’s first syllable:

“Budge.”


	4. "I've Just Got One"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock reflects on his poor choice of words at Baskerville.

I started by trying what I knew Ordinary People did. Break the ice with small talk. I asked him questions, tried to make him feel like his contributions to the investigation were significant. Of course it didn’t work; that’s why I never usually bothered. Despite all my efforts, he walked away, and he kept walking, even when I tried to explain how badly… out of sorts I was last night.

I knew he was hurt. I knew that my poor choice of words, my lapse of Control last night had wounded his sensitive heart, in the only place that he left undefended, because defense would not be-- _should_ not have been necessary: our friendship.

Friendship, yes, because that is what it is. There have been only a scant few times in our association where he has actually retreated from my characteristic acidity, and those were the times when, as I can see now with the scientific clarity afforded to hindsight, he opened up to me in the sanctuary of friendship and I lashed out in rejection of that privilege.

Privilege, because I realized that nothing on this Earth, whatever its orbital status, was more precious to me than this. I could only hope, as I addended my words, that he too would realize just how lost I’d be without my blogger.


	5. Breathing

_Breathe!_

Sherlock shocks into lucidity, leaving behind the world of biting wind and smeared concrete, of tears and heartbreak, temporary though it should have been.

_Gone, gone, gone, left, rejected, gone_ …

Sherlock realizes—with a small feeling of satisfaction at the fact that he is still rational enough to observe this detachedly—that he has been crying ever since he awakened, that his inhalations are ragged, and his face is dripping onto the covers.

_He’s gone. I’ll never get him back._

This room is empty, painfully neat, and terribly lonely. He doesn’t care if the person coming in is about to stab him, because it couldn’t get much more humiliating than falling completely to pieces in front of your murderer, and he just _doesn’t care_.

“Sherlock?”

One strong hand on his back, settling exactly into its place, as the sense memory reminds him—it had to be—

“ _John._ ”

He doesn’t care if the crack in his façade opens a little wider than he’d prefer. He doesn’t care if he makes John uncomfortable by the way he practically throws himself into his lap. He doesn’t care if normal flatmates don’t share their beds and whisper small comforts and give lovely head rubs. It doesn’t matter—none of it matters—because John is _here_.

And if John is here, then he can breathe.


	6. Beating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow-up to Chapter 5 happened. Because there can never be too much fluff during Finals Season.

John obligingly climbs into the bed, sitting against the headboard as his friend all but curls up in his lap. His left hand hasn’t left Sherlock’s back, but now his right threads into Sherlock’s hair, which is damp from nightmare sweat. “I’m here,” John whispers, because he knows what the dream was about. He had many of them himself, during the Hiatus, as they’ve taken to calling it, and there are still some moments where he can’t believe that his life now, with his returned Sherlock, isn’t just a dream itself. “I’m not going to leave. It’s going to be okay, Sherlock.”

These moments are too precious to waste.

Sherlock’s breathing evens out after the first few minutes. He says nothing, but John takes the way that he hasn’t released the death-grip he has on John’s jumper as an invitation—though a rather strong one—to spend the rest of the night right here. He doesn’t mind, not really. He’ll have a crick in his back come daylight, but it’s a small price to pay.

This is _his_ Sherlock, _his_ best friend, _his_ resurrected miracle-maker. He will never take the moments he has with Sherlock for granted again, much less the privileged ones wherein he is allowed to share in Sherlock’s vulnerability.

He is lulled to sleep by twin hearts beating.


	7. You Should Have Known Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Criminals are stupid! :D

Really, he should have known better.

Just because your target is a good foot shorter than you, wearing a cuddly-looking jumper, and carrying a bag full of groceries does not mean he’ll be an _easy_ target.

Therefore, John couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty for the blood that was trickling down his would-be-mugger’s nose as John pinned the larger man to the wall of the alley. It really was a pity that he hadn’t gone down and stayed down on the first swing, because now John was going to have to secure him, call the police (maybe), and on top of that, the milk was getting warmer all the time.

He kept the criminal’s arms pinned with his right hand and good shoulder while his left hand plucked the mugger’s one advantage out of his increasingly numbing fingers.

“A knife? Really?” John asked as he snapped shut the weapon in his hands. The mugger made no sound—clever of him, for once—as John pocketed the knife and walked calmly back to pick up his groceries.

Two minutes later, the sounds of sirens heralded the still-shaking mugger’s coming incarceration, though the silver-haired inspector didn’t listen to his insistences that _he_ had been the one attacked.

Really, the criminal underworld should know better by now than to mess with Sherlock Holmes’s blogger.


	8. The Skull Just Attracts Attention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock wakes up in the hospital to find business as usual-- John by his bedside, flowers on the table-- except for one new thing...

John had left the thing in amongst the flowers on the nightstand more as a joke than anything else. Mrs. Hudson had settled it there with a mother’s gentle care, saying nothing to justify herself. No words were necessary. It was simply a gift, from one sweet landlady to her darling tenant—though John still marveled at how she always saw that side of him when even John was only allowed scant glimpses.

When Sherlock had finally awakened, he scanned the paraphernalia that many well-wishers had left him—Good Lord, how long had he been out?— and he instantly picked out the unique item.

“Why’s there a stuffed horse?”

“I really think it’s more of a pony,” John said with no small grin while removing it from its perch and setting it in Sherlock’s lap. The look of disdain Sherlock gave it, as though it should have been ashamed of itself for invading his person, was priceless. John wished he could’ve caught it on his phone’s camera.

He got a second chance when he came back after a quick dash out for lunch. He knew that Sherlock tended to ramble even when he wasn’t around, but this idiosyncrasy reached new levels of _adorable_ when he returned to see Sherlock digressing to his pony—now christened Antigone—about the habits of bees.


End file.
